Well-Being and Resilience

ASH recognizes that in order to accomplish its mission of helping hematologists conquer blood diseases worldwide it is necessary to have a strong workforce of clinicians, researchers, and other members of the health care team. Well-being is a critical factor in the strength of this workforce, and the Society is committed to helping hematologists address the myriad factors impacting well-being through interventions such as openly addressing burnout in live meetings and in publications, advocating on behalf of hematologists to streamline administrative work, and sharing approaches to building resilience among hematologists.

ASH provides the following resources to help clinicians and trainees be resilient.

Elevating evidence-based, multidisciplinary solutions that will improve patient care by caring for the caregiver.

The NAM also recently introduced its Clinician Well-Being Knowledge Hub, a dynamic and comprehensive resource repository that includes peer-reviewed research, news articles, blog posts, toolkits, reports, and briefs on clinician well-being and burnout. The knowledge hub provides a central source for health system leaders, clinicians, and trainees to better understand what causes clinician burnout and to adopt solutions that promise a brighter, healthier future.

Join the NAM listserv to keep up to date on the Action Collaborative and the organization’s other clinician well-being and resilience initiatives.

Resilience Whiteboard at the ASH Annual Meeting

ASH is interested in discovering ways in which resilience is being addressed – both by hematology professionals and early-career trainees – as well as how it can help bring more awareness and develop education around this topic in the future.

During the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting, attendees were invited to visit the ASH Whiteboard Wall on Resilience in ASH Central and were asked to answer the following question: “As a hematologist, how do you build resilience and face factors that might contribute to professional burnout?” Hundreds of attendees visited the whiteboard and shared their stories with graphic artists who illustrated their words in real time.

ASH Practice Partnership

The ASH Practice Partnership (APP) is comprised of practicing hematologists across the U.S. who are interested in hematology care issues, quality of care, new health care delivery systems, and practice management issues.

Each year, the APP hosts a lunch at the ASH annual meeting, designed to provide a practice-focused session for this community. In 2017, the APP Lunch focused on physician stress and burnout, with speakers presenting on the following topics: physician well-being as a whole; the focus on compassion to mitigate burnout; and burnout, moral distress, and career satisfaction in hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) providers. The APP will continue to work on physician stress and burnout in the coming years.

ASH Publications

Read the following articles on physician burnout in ASH Clinical News:

"Burnout? What Burnout?"This June 2018 article chronicles Dr. Keith Stewart’s experience with burnout as it relates to clinical trials.

“No Easy Solution for Physician Burnout”Physician burnout is marked by emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and decreased effectiveness; and it is on the rise in the U.S., with up to 54 percent of doctors affected. In this article, Tait Shanafelt, MD, and Christine Sinsky, MD, provide thoughts on the subject.

Sign Up for ASH Newsletters

Need Help?

If you (or another colleague) are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. You can also reach out to your program director or your institution’s Employee Assistance Program.